Well, I've finally gotten a chance to get back to Disgaea 2. I'm in the middle of a run through Item World right now; nearing the 20th floor.

I was using this as an opportunity to level up some of my weaker characters, although I'm now down to just Pentium, Yendor, and Peach, aside from the 4 downloaded characters that I'm saving as a last resort. 2k-tan went down on the 11th floor, and it was pretty rough from there; being unable to exploit the ice weaknesses on any foes, but at least Penti-chan could pick up the slack with star magic...until she ran low on MP and MP restoring items. I'm now on the 19th floor; taking a break to do some other things before heading back in and finishing it up.

When I'm playing the 2nd one and things get rough, I send in the "elite four" of my team; the downloaded characters (Pleinair, Sapphire, Marona, and Demon Lady Hanako), who are all level 100.

However, even they couldn't stand up to Etna when I had to fight her earlier in the game. Until you've looped through the game several times and have your characters around level 1000, this battle is the Disgaea equivalent to the Kobiyashi Maru.